Category Archives: Kidnapping & Hostage-taking

The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office has issued a dozen identically worded advisories for European nations.

The nations for which the advisory was issued are Poland, Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Italy, Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Spain, Belgium, Denmark, and France.

The advisory text reads:

“May be increased security in place over Christmas & New Year period, including at Christmas markets & other major events that might attract large crowds; remain vigilant & follow advice of local authorities”

It’s worth mentioning that there is no reference whatsoever to what has caused this advisory to be issued. The answer of course is Islamic jihad. Acts of violent jihad, particularly individual acts of violent jihad, have become part of the European landscape over the past decade.

In addition to car bombings and firefights, there are vehicle rammings, seemingly random acts of knife jihad, sexual assaults by roving gangs and acid attacks.

This violence has escalated with the onslaught of so-called “migrants” into Europe from Islamic-dominated regions of the world, notably, southwest Asia, the Middle East and parts of Africa.

As a result, a new aspect of Christmas has appeared. To go along with peace on earth and goodwill toward men, in Europe we now have barricades surrounding Christmas celebrations, heavily armed soldiers in full kit always close to Santa and Nativity scenes and the occasional attack.

There is something that was left out of the UK Foreign Office advisory:

There was no mention of the UK of course, which is understandable because the Foreign Office only handles foreign affairs, not domestic policy.

On the other hand, there can be no doubt that the United Kingdom is under the same intense threat from jihad as the 12 European nations mentioned in its dispatches. But who is issuing advisories for travelers to the UK?

We can now add Melbourne, Australia to the long list of Western cities victimized by jihad during the Muslim “holy” month of Ramadan.

Late yesterday afternoon, Yacqub Khayre, 29, an Australian citizen of Somali descent–who came to Australia as a child refugee at the age of 4–killed one innocent victim and took another hostage before being killed by police in a shootout and siege that lasted some 2 hours.

Khayre killed a Chinese-Australian man in the lobby of an apartment building in the affluent Brighton area of Melbourne. He then took a woman hostage in the building. Within two hours he was shot dead by police after opening fire on them.

Initial reports of the incident indicated that it was not “terrorist-related,” however those reports turned out to be inaccurate.

It turns out that Khayre called a local television station during the stand-off stating, “This is for the Islamic State, this is for Al-Qaeda.”

Subsequently, the Islamic State media arm, Amaq, claimed credit for the attack, stating,””The executor of the Melbourne attack in Australia is a soldier of the Islamic State and he carried out the attack in response to appeals to target citizens of coalition states.”

Once again, it turns out that Yacqub Khayre was known to authorities, had a long history of violence, had previously been charged with a terror offense but acquitted and was known to have connections in the past, with “violent extremists,” (which is of course a misnomer for Jihadists)

Philippine officials reported Monday that fighters with the terrorist organization Abu Sayyaf have beheaded a fisherman, Noel Besconde, who was taken hostage during the hijacking of the Ramona 2 late last year. Besconde was the vessel’s captain.

Unlike Abu Sayyaf’s last four hostage beheadings, which the group carried out when ransom deadlines passed, the killing appeared to be motivated by the need for mobility. “The reason why he was beheaded is that he was delaying their movement,” said Brigadier-General Cirilito Sobejana.

Can there be anything more symbolic of the Obama administration’s failure to combat the global Jihad than Boko Haram’s kidnapping of hundreds of Christian school girls in Nigeria three years ago? Especially given the fact that Boko Haram subsequently became an Islamic State affiliate.

That’s right, one side-effect of the Obama administration allowing the Islamic State to form and metastasize was the joining of forces with the organization that then-first lady Michelle Obama so infamously “attacked” with her hashtag counterterrorism program.

This week marks the third anniversary of the mass abduction…

The BringBackOurGirls (BBOG) group on Friday began its Global Week of Action at the Unity Fountain, Abuja.

There was a low turnout of its members at the opening session of the scheduled seven day of activities to mark three years of the abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls.

About 195 of the girls are still believed to be in the custody of the Boko Haram.

We’ve been covering the Islamic insurgency in the Philippines for years now. Along with Thailand, it is one of the two major Islamic insurgencies of which people in the West are mostly unaware.

Since the Jihadist group Abu Sayyaf pledged allegiance to the Islamic State back in 2014, their operations have escalated, at the very least suggesting that funding sources have ramped up their support for the Jihad in the Philippines…

The latest incident involves the hostage taking of a half dozen Vietnamese sailors from the high seas near the Philippines, part of Abu Sayyaf’s ongoing operations to both terrorize and raise money through ransom…

Suspected Abu Sayyaf militants attacked a Vietnamese cargo ship on Friday, kidnapping the captain and five of its crew members near the southern Philippine island of Basilan.

Approximately 10 gunmen launched a dawn attack on the MV Royal 16, boarding the vessel and fleeing with their captives in speedboats, according to regional military spokesman Major Filemon Tan. Their fate and current status remain unknown.

The ship was heading for Davao City but was stopped near the southern heartland of the Abu Sayyaf militant group, which has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State militant group (ISIS). Vietnam is yet to comment on their kidnap.

Two years ago today the savage barbarians of Boko Haram, an Islamic jihadist organization, kidnapped 276 Christian schoolgirls in Nigeria.

At the time, this was but the latest example of Boko Haram’s reign of terror. Up to that point, Boko Haram specifically targeted and slaughtered Christians–especially Christian worshippers on Christian Holy Days, such as Christmas, Palm Sunday and Easter.

In fact, Boko Haram is said to be directly responsible for more deaths than the Islamic State (ISIS).

But it wasn’t until they kidnapped these hundreds of schoolgirls that the world was finally awoken to the danger that Boko Haram posed. And, in fact, since then, Boko Haram has officially joined the Islamic State, meaning that the caliphate now controls territory in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Nigeria and has branches and affiliates among some 35 jihadist organizations in as many as 19 nations stretching from the Philippines to west Africa, in addition to supporters and sympathizers across western Europe and in North America.

Despite the fact that the world was awoken to the danger from Boko Haram two years ago today, the world’s response has been feeble, mainly because the so-called leader of the Free World, Barack Obama, doesn’t view Jihad as a global threat, but rather a collection of local, unrelated conflicts in which he doesn’t want to get involved.

Nothing better symbolizes the Obama administration’s cavalier recalcitrance to the threat from Jihad than Michelle Obama’s hashtag Twitter response to the kidnapping of the 276 Christian schoolgirls in Nigeria.

The fact is, it’s so easy to ignore something like this happening in Africa, because no one really cares about Africa all that much. That isn’t just a shame, it’s criminally negligent because the facts point to Boko Haram being part of the global Jihadist movement, not just a local gang of thugs.

Can there be any doubt that were these 276 American, French, British, or even Saudi, schoolgirls, someone would be raining hot lead and hell down on Boko Haram by now?

But we all know that isn’t going to happen because our leaders refuse to recognize that we are in a global war and that the Jihadists have one goal in mind: a worldwide caliphate ruling by Shariah.

The U.S. has been especially slow to recognize the threat posed by Boko Haram in particular. We can thank Hillary Clinton for that. Despite dishonest attempts at revisionist history by Soros-funded Socialist front groups like Think Progress to spin the details, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blocked efforts to have Boko Haram designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization for more than two years.

She did so because someone had convinced her that designating Boko Haram as terrorists might anger the group to the point that they might target Americans. If that reminds you of appeasement in Europe in the 1930s, that’s because it IS just like appeasement in Europe in the 1930s.

In Hillary Clinton’s world, if the Jihadists want to slaughter thousands of Christians in churches in Africa every Christmas and Easter, that’s okay, as long as they don’t attack us.

It can no longer be denied that France is in the throes of the global Islamic insurgency. Today, a coordinated, multifaceted attack eerily reminiscent of the 2008 Mumbai, India attack by Lashkar e Taiba, resulted in the deaths of at least 160 people.

The attack involved small arms and grenades and nearly simultaneous attacks in 7 different locations around Paris.

What most people do not realize is that these attacks are but the latest in a string of attacks going back to the infamous Charlie Hebdo attack 10 months ago. Everyone remembers Charlie Hebdo, but few in America realize that there have been several small-scale Jihadi incidents across France both before and after Charlie Hebdo, all of which are indicative of a revolutionary Jihadist atmosphere developing in the country.

France has been targeted because it has been the most active nation fighting Jihad in recent years, effectively decimating Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in Mali and carrying out air strikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

It is absolutely imperative that the West stand with France with more than just symbolism. Now is not the time for candlelight vigils and peace rallies. Now is the time when NATO must take the threat from the Islamic State seriously. France is a NATO nation and has been attacked by a foreign power. That means that the North Atlantic Treaty must be invoked and activated.

It is time for the full weight and force and the North Atlantic Alliance be brought to bear to end the caliphate once and for all–no matter what it takes to do so.

It is highly likely that Rolando del Torchio was abducted by Jihadists. First of all, the abduction occurred on Mindanao, a hotbed of Jihadi violence for many years. Second, this poor man is a former Catholic missionary; missionaries have been especially targeted by Jihadists in the Philippines for many years.

This abduction shows the futility of negotiating with Jihadists. The Philippine government has been attempting to appease the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) for years, so splinter groups and other independent Jihadist groups have carried on with campaigns of terror.

Even if MILF was willing to honor a truce with the Philippine government (highly doubtful), they are but one group of Jihadists operating in the Philippines. It is more likely than not that the Jihadist insurgency in Mindanao will escalate, rather than decline…

Unknown gunmen seized Rolando del Torchio, a former PIME missionary, in Dipolog City (Zamboanga del Norte, Mindanao), where he owned the ‘Ur Choice Bistro Café’, an eatery near the Andres Bonifacio College.

Rolando Del Torchio, 57, comes from Angera (Varese, Italy). Ordained a missionary with the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) in 1984, he worked in Naples for a few years and was then sent to the Philippines, to Sebuco on Mindanao, not far from where he was kidnapped.

As a missionary, he worked hard to defend the rights of farmers and tribals against landowners, often putting his own life at risk. In 2001, he asked to live outside the Institute, remaining in Zamboanga del Norte. Subsequently, he left the priesthood for personal reasons.

Nothing is known about the kidnappers. Several Muslim guerrilla groups operate on the island of Mindanao. Some are engaged in talks with the Filipino government. Others abduct foreigners or locals for financial gain or to pursue their struggle against the authorities.

PIME has been present in Mindanao since the 1970s. One of Rolando Del Torchio’s colleagues, Fr Fausto Tentorio, was killed in 2011. Two other missionaries have been killed on the island. Private armed guards murdered Fr Tullio Favali in Tulunan, in the Diocese of Kidapawan, in 1985. Fr Salvatore Carzedda, who was involved in talks with Muslims, was assassinated in Zamboanga in 1992.

Two more missionaries have been abducted. Fr Luciano Benedetti was kidnapped in 1998 by a Muslim group but was released after about two months. A splinter group from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) seized Fr Giancarlo Bossi in 2007 and released him after two months in captivity.

Former Army Ranger Peter Kassig has been murdered by the barbaric savages of the Islamic State.

This unfortunate turn of events was certainly not a surprise. The Islamic State doesn’t release hostages. They behead them or crucify them, based on Islamic religious doctrine.

We have viewed the 16-minute propaganda video from the Islamic State. We will not link it here.

The video actually depicts an orchestrated mass beheading, not just the murder of Kassig.

One thing stood out in the video when we were looking at the twenty or so Jihadis doing the beheadings (see image below): There were many different ethnic groups represented.

Clearly, the Islamic State has gathered recruits from Muslims around the world.

This is something we already knew, but there are still many in the West who are in denial about the widespread support for and outright popularity of the Islamic State amongst the umma around the world.

A late report here from The Muslim Issue blog: evidently, one of the Jihadis doing the beheadings was a former medical student from the UK. This is one of a succession of Muslim physicians or medical students who have committed acts of Jihad…